Smart Factory innovation transforms culture, production and global growth for LISI Aerospace
A division of the long-established global manufacturer LISI Group, LISI AEROSPACE (LISI) has been active in the fastener market since 1977. The business specializes in the design and manufacture of a wide range of assembly systems and high value added metal structural components for the world’s leading players in the aerospace industry. LISI has a strong UK presence with its site in Rugby, where it trades under the name Blanc Aero Industries UK Limited. Manufacturing Today spoke to General Manager, Mark Capell, and his colleague Taahir Patel, Process Development Manager, who revealed more about the company and its innovative Smart Factory production line. “The site was initially based in Coventry, and we moved to Rugby when the original facility was bombed during The Blitz,” Mark opens. “I always believe that fighting spirit is in our DNA and has got us through a lot of challenging times in recent years. By the 1980s, we’d grown and moved premises twice before acquiring the Butler’s Leap site we have now. Since then, we’ve continued to expand, increasing manufacturing output by over 240 percent in the past five years and achieving record turnover in 2025.”
LISI’s Smart Factory project, led by Taahir and his team, has been successful in creating higher value jobs and career paths within the company, shifting the focus from traditional engineering and introducing new roles around software development and data analysis into the factory. Taahir was awarded the MX Young Manufacturer of the Year in 2023 before helping LISI establish its first Smart Factory line. “The Smart Factory vision started in 2019 when we scoped out the new production line,” Taahir adds. “It’s about using technology to make things faster and more effective. We were successful in receiving £975,000 worth of funding from Innovate UK to do the research and development of this project, for this, we partnered with the University of Sheffield AMRC. We developed machines with advanced sensors capable of generating thousands of data points to allow analysis and AI development. We have just recently completed the first phase of machine learning, enabling us to detect when a tool is failing; all thanks to our machine learning (ML) apprentice. This is an amazing achievement for us, considering that we started off with a team of two back in 2019, now we have a team of ten with four apprentices in the team following a dedicated development plan to support future growth of the site.”
Growth Strategy
With plans for more lines to be split across its sites in California, USA and France, the company’s strategy for growth includes its LISI Excellence Achievement Program which centers around continuous improvement processes. The program was an integral part of supporting the business through Covid, while also preparing for the future. “We were always planning to recover from the pandemic and continue growing,” explains Mark. “We didn’t have a lot of financial support throughout that process, due to the challenges being faced by the industry, although LISI Group strongly backed the idea. It was a bit of a leap of faith, after which we began receiving small amounts of funding to invest in our equipment. We then made the decision in 2021 to divert a large part of our CapEx budget into the Smart Factory machine. Having that strategy process to ensure that everybody in the team could contribute helped us get through 2021 and 2022. Our real breakthrough was in 2023, when we were beginning to deliver the results both organizationally and with the manufacturing process. LISI Group then started to increase the amount of funding we got into LISI Rugby and by 2024 we were investing over £3 million on equipment per year. We were able to convince the headquarters of the strategic importance of this project, so they started to invest their money into the idea and we’re quite proud of the fact that by 2023 our project featured in the LISI Group annual report to investors as one of the key strategic projects. Then in 2025 we started discussing the lines in California. Both Taahir and I have been supporting that on a technical but also a cultural level, as both aspects are equally as important.”
Apprenticeships are an integral part of the culture at LISI, usually starting at Level 3 and being funded up to Level 6 and degree level. It offers various roles, including software development, data analysis and machine learning, allowing apprentices to gain valuable skills and knowledge before beginning a job with the company. “I started in the business straight after an apprenticeship at a competitor site in 2017,” shares Taahir. Mark added “At that time, the site wasn’t particularly renowned for apprenticeships – we only had one or two manufacturing apprentices but that all changed in 2020, with Taahir as a senior process development engineer. He built that team up and took on more apprentices, so we became much stronger in that area. It’s an exciting and interesting opportunity. It is common for us to welcome the children of employees for an apprenticeship and later a job within our company. It actually supports our CSR policy of the 3P, supporting the PEOPLE part. “
LISI is on track to continue growing in 2026, with more recruitment across all areas of the factory and another record year on the cards. “We’ve built a name for ourselves, and I think we’re now quite an attractive employer in the local area,” concludes Mark. “As a site, I think we’re going to be breaking records in terms of productivity and hopefully in terms of profitability, so the future is looking bright for us. Additionally, we’ll continue to support the LISI Group rolling out this concept and helping wherever we can. It’s looking extremely busy, and we’re ready to support the ramp-up of the sector, I believe it’s down to the teamwork and the structured process that we have around our site strategy that’s making that a reality.
“We’ll continue to grow and spread the Smart Factory concept around the other manufacturing lines across the site, but we’re also looking at other manufacturing processes to increase that level of technology in some of our plating processes. We’ll also be looking at where we can further automate processes, as it’s really reaching the point where we can link processes together and have a more hands-off production line in the near future. All these advances support LISI AEROSPACE’s values of Innovation and Operational Excellence, driving us in all our decisions.”